Column by Melissa Warren

In the words of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the American market today is designed to support “energy from hell.” Maybe the solution to this lies in heaven’s rays.

That profound statement was the summit of everything Kennedy’s September lecture at Memorial Coliseum represented. It is difficult to deny the correlation between America’s foreign policy agenda, declining economy and conventional means of energy. We are beginning to witness the impact of using oil and coal on our well being.

As Americans, we are guaranteed life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, all of which are undermined as corporations continue to poison us with their products and ideology. As citizens and consumers we must recognize the corrupt system that continues to suppress real progress in energy methods, the method of poisoning us, and the solution that can alter our future.

Corporations drain humanity out of human rights faster than they drain oil. They constantly attempt to convince us they are progressing while limiting the true potential of clean, renewable energy in an effort to make money at any moral cost. Our government has given trillions to oil industry subsidies.

Our indebted nation is borrowing money to give to oil companies, who despite dwindling resources, continue to produce and poison their customers.

If it is so limited, why do they continue to devote time and money to furthering its use? Royal Dutch Shell estimates that within seven years, the world’s oil supply will be depleted, leaving us with little time to waste. That time and money is desperately needed to further develop alternative energy sources that are sustainable. Meanwhile, we remain at war and in debt over oil which ruins our environment and consequently our lives.

Our right to life is jeopardized as we are unknowingly poisoned by the very thing that fuels our day. Wildlife die and water is contaminated by oil spills and irresponsible disposal of oil. Aside from the obvious consequences that we know about oil, we cannot overlook the resource that poisons us right at out backdoor.

The Appalachians, a beautiful landscape that makes our home unique, is being destroyed while its rivers and lakes are being contaminated as a result of coal mining. It has been found that freshwater lakes and the fish we consume from them have been tainted with mercury due to the burning of coal.

West Virginia and Kentucky have fallen victim to this conspiracy more than any state due to our widespread coal mining industry. While those who work in mines are poisoned by poor working conditions, their families are being harmed by the very product they derive from the Earth. The Center for Disease Control reports  freshwater fish in the United States contain dangerous levels of mercury.

A report by the U.S. Geological Survey found that “contamination by mercury, a neurotoxin, was detected in every fish sampled in 291 streams across the country … and a quarter of the fish were found to contain mercury above the Environmental Protection Agency’s safe level for human consumption.” They also stated coal-fired power plants are the largest source of mercury emissions in the U.S. Mercury at these levels is responsible for sterile lakes and cognitive birth defects.

Coal mining has caused devastating economic retributions in our area. It is unjustified that an industry that impoverishes and poisons an area can require even more from its employees and consumers through taxation. Many highways in our area require around 22 inches of asphalt to sustain the transportation of coal by truck, and taxes pay for it. Why are we paying for poverty and poison?

An increasingly popular method of energy withdrawal could be the answer to debt, disease and dependency. No other resource is more sustainable than our sun. It freely gives off energy expecting nothing in return. It is also safe to say that we don’t have to worry about it running out within seven years.

Solar energy is clean, reliable, renewable and low cost. Once an energy grid is created and the necessary equipment is installed, solar power is a virtually free commodity.

Consumers can even sell their excess energy back to the power companies for market price.

Above all, it is completely harmless. Several other countries that have implemented this new method have achieved great environmental and economic success. Kennedy stresses the importance of the idea that good environmental quality equals good economic quality.

There is hope in advancements continuing thanks to companies that Kennedy advocates like BrightSource Energy Inc., which develops and operates large-scale solar plants that deliver energy to industrial and utility companies all over the world. The world will be brighter if we take the initiative to shed a little bit of heaven’s rays into the depths of the hell created by our dependence on oil and coal.